Multiple districts — This summer, students experienced what it’s like to be in a rock band at the Grandville Avenue Arts and Humanities 11th annual Girls Rock Grand Rapids camp.
During this week-long camp, girls and gender-nonconforming youth ages eight to 18 divided into groups, chose a band name, designed a logo and participated in instrument learning and songwriting workshops. Staffed by local female and gender-nonconforming volunteers, the camp welcomed students from Grand Rapids, Godfrey-Lee, Godwin Heights and Kelloggsville public schools.
Each band had various combinations of students playing guitars, drums and keyboards. Some composed instrumental songs, while others wrote their own lyrics.
Inside GAAH’s Cook Arts Center, the newly formed band “Starlight Killers” brainstormed song lyric ideas, supervised by former Girls Rock camp volunteer — now GAAH chief financial officer and band coach — Jes Kramer. She advised the students to start trying to match their drafted lyrics to music.
Eighth-grader Opal from Grand Rapids Montessori said the feeling of loneliness could inspire a song idea. Southwest Middle High School sophomore Isabella suggested the lyric, “The silence is louder than my thoughts,” inciting a positive response from her bandmates.
Nearby, Kelloggsville middle-schooler Henry experimented with some chords on the keytar, which sounded like “ice cream truck music” according to City Middle High School freshman Happiness.
Henry said learning to play the synthesizer was the most fun part of camp.
“I’m excited to have it all come together and get to play our song in front of an audience.”
At the end of the week, “Starlight Killers” and the five other bands recorded their songs in a recording studio and performed on stage at Blandford Nature Center.
What is Girls Rock Grand Rapids?
The Girls Rock Camp Alliance is an international membership network of youth-centered arts and social justice organizations. In 2012, CEO Staff Rosalez and five other women created a Girls Rock chapter in Grand Rapids, in partnership with Grandville Avenue Arts and Humanities, before handing over the program completely in 2018.
Composing A Culture Shift
Kramer said Girls Rock is not your traditional music camp.
“We’re not trying to create the next guitar virtuoso or drum prodigy,” she said. “Our goal is to create a space where kids can be fully themselves, where they can build confidence and where they can learn to collaborate creatively with their peers.”
GAAH CEO Steff Rosalez said the tangible goals of the camp are straightforward — join a band, write, record and perform your songs — but the greater goal is to shift music culture and cultivate inclusion and justice. The idea that young musicians need to sound “perfect,” she said, is something that needs to be unlearned.
“We are trying to teach kids and adults to resist these deeply ingrained cultural norms that tell us using music to express ourselves has to sound, look, or be expressed in a way that is only aligned with technical ability, celebrity culture and a history of exclusion,” she said.
A former teacher and school administrator, GAAH COO Alex Kuiper said he has witnessed the importance of art and music in students’ lives.
“Not only do the arts enrich lives and help students academically, it also gives young people the opportunity to explore their identity and find where they fit into the world,” he said. “Girls Rock Grand Rapids gives young people, who historically do not have access or opportunities in the male-dominated music scene, (a chance) to explore what it means to be a musician and a collaborator in a safe and creative space.”
Read more from our districts:
• Partnership between district and church creates opportunity in the arts
• Fourth-graders learn about energy transfer through a sound bath
